ORIGIN AND CLOSE OF THE OLD-TIME NORTHERN TRAIL, Page #0025

a difficult matter to re-inhabit our state ; therefore
development would have been checked for many years ; possibly no iron horse
would have reached the Rio Grande up to this time as the inducement would not
have been attractive. No one knows what would have happened had the Northern
trail never existed, but it is plain that all commercial achievements,
civilization, good government, Christianity, morality, our school system, the
use of all school and state lands making them revenue-bearers, the expansion of
the stock business from the Rio Grande to the British possessions, which is
producing millions of dollars ; the building of railroads, factories, seaports,
agricultural advancement and everything else pertaining to prosperity can be
traced directly to the achievements of the old-time trail drivers. The many good
things accomplished by the untiring efforts of these old heroes can never be
realized or told just as they were enacted, and it would be the father of all
mistakes to let their daring and valuable efforts be forgotten and pass to
unwritten history. Our Association now has 500 members and by resolution we made
the sons of the old-time trail drivers eligible to membership. There are many
old-timers that have not joined, but I believe every one will when the
importance of perpetuating the memory of the old-timers is fully understood by
them. It is our purpose to write a history dealing strictly with trail and ranch
life and the early cattle industry. This book will consist of letters written by
trail drivers only, giving the minutest details of their experiences of bygone
days at home and on the trail, and will contain facts and be full of thrills.
Such a book has never been written ; all the books published on this subject
have been by some author who spent a few months on some ranch, then attempted to
write a book, understanding very little about stock or the stock business, and
consequently having them pulling off stunts that have never been pulled off
anywhere else but in the fertile imagination of some fiction writer. We